Hymenopsorum flavum - Sweetshade

The Sweetshade is a nice evergreen tree with a narrow upright habit to about 40' and about 10-20' wide. The canopy tends to be pretty open. Not a common tree, but worth finding one. Works well in narrow areas. Flowers are interesting, late spring. 

This is a planting of 3 or 4, most of them are in the middle of the image and to the left down the driveway. 

Leaves are evergreen, alternate, simple, lanceolate to oblong 2-6" long, generally folded up like a boat, and entire margins. Dark glossy green, the leaves are clustered at the tips of the stems lower surface lighter green.

Stems are brown, turning gray with age.

Flowers in late spring. Yellow flowers turn darker with age, five petals, and a long floral tube looking like a long cigar before the tips open and the petal reflex backwards. Flowers long and cylindrical before opening. Fragrant but high up in the tree and you are not likely to smell them. Terminal cluster of 16 or less flowers.

 Fruit is a dry capsule releasing lots of orange-brown flat seeds later winter.

Bark is gray and somewhat scaly.

Misidentification:
Might be mistaken for Tristianopsis laurina or Lophostemon confertus.

Location:

Aptos
219 or 221 Florence Ave. As seen in the picture above with multiple specimens.

Cabrillo College on the road between the Sesnon house and the Day Care building. Single specimen.

Santa Cruz
2911 Chanticleer Ave just off Soquel